I'll agree
The powerful experience I had has changed my outlook completely. The room IS one of the most important things for a good sound. The mic pres do a certain thing. They (and the mic) are responsible for the QUALITY of the actual signal, but that signal has to have a canvas, and that canvas is the room itself.
I have heard so many pros here talk about the importance of rooms, and I blew it off as being like my mom telling me to wear clean underwear because I might end up in an accident. I thought they were just spouting off meaningless stuff that only sounded good to say.
I'm telling you, when I walked into that room, I experienced the same FEELING that I get when listening to a pro recording. I knew INSTANTLY that I was hearing and feeling what I had been searching for. So, I must disagree about the song being the most important thing. The song, whether good or bad, can still be recorded good. You can have a great recording of someone puking. The sound of puking sounds bad, but you would still be able to hear that it is a pristine recording done in a wonderful space. Listen to the Hollywood effects cd's and tell me those are not recorded wonderfully, but there are no "songs" there.
No, the revelation was INSTANT. YOU CANNOT FAKE IT. That bed, that silent backdrop where each frequency has an equal chance to shine comes from that SPACE (or canvas) below the signals.
The sound recorded in a great room seems to come out of nowhere when you listen in headphones. Like you can walk around it inside your head. It's as if it magically appears because the bed (the room) is so opposite from the signals. The canvas (room) sucks all the other noises and bad frequencies from INTERFERING with the pristine signal. The pre and mic do something totally different. they change the ACTUAL signal itself, making it clear and detailed, but I see now that you cannot FAKE that canvas BEHIND the signals, which is what the signals rest on. The room is the bed, the canvas, and the better it does it's job, the more difference between the signal and the beautiful silence behind it.
I see it clearly now. YOU CANNOT FAKE HAVING THAT canvas. It's got to be there in order for the actual signal to STAND OUT FROM IT. The signal sounds 3 dimensional and pristine IN THAT ENVIRONMENT. This has nothing to do with the preamp. The preamp and mic effect THE ACTUAL SIGNAL ITSELF. The room is what PRESENTS THE SIGNAL to the listener The room is the PLATE that the signal (food) is on. The lack of that plate, or canvas cannot be overcome. There will be something missing that cannot be made up for.
Now I understand what I have been missing all this time. Now I understand that the pros weren't just saying this shit just because it sounds good. I remember years ago when I first started reading the rec.audio.pro group that there were a couple guys having a debate about he rooms they were using, and I remember thinking to myself, "who the hell cares, the space you are recording in doesn't matter" Then I would sit and listen to great recordings like Dark Side of the moon and ask myself, why can't I get that beatiful clarity. Listening to that record on headphones is a religious experience. I would sit and wonder how, how they could make that sound of the guitars so pristine, so clear, and make it stand out from whatever was behind it. I now realize that it wasn't just the great mics and preamps, but it was how those signals were PRESENTED. It was about what wasn't there as much as what was there. Am I making sense?
The canvas was the awesome silence behind the signals, letting the signals be revealed in all there glory. The room (canvas) sucked everything away that might interfere with the beauty and delicate nature of the signal. The mics and preamps made the actual signal itself sound sweet, delicate, detailed, but now I realize that the room has to allow that beautiful mic and preamp signal to rest on a silent canvas, a canvas that takes all the intereference away from that backgroud.
Yes, I have learned that the room PRESENTS the beatiful signals to the listener. It can't be faked. I would consider the two being totally seperate as entities. The canvas is 50 percent of the beauty. 50 percent is the signal and all that goes into it, and then 50 percent is how it's presented. If you have a suck-ass room, then all the great pres and mics in hell can't present the signal in a pristine environment. The two are opposites in many ways. The room is an anti signal, allowing only certain signals to come to life (your signals made by the instrument, mic, pre, engineer) It stops any other interference. It's half of everything. The signal is one part, and the space around it is the other. The space ALLOWING that signal to come to life while giving it the silent backdrop to be heard and tasted.
I now think of it in this way. Imagine a room of a 100 people. Your signal is one of the hundred voices. All the 100 people are softly chattering, and your signal, (one of the voices) is louder than the rest, and you want to hear that signal above the other softly chattering voices. It won't matter how beautiful your actual voice is if part of it is being swallowed up by the other 99 soft voices.
Your signal is clear, sweet (mic and pre, engineer, musician instrument), but in order to hear that beauty you must stop the other whispering voices. You cannot present your signal (no matter how pretty and detailed the mic and pre make it), without giving it the silence in which to be appreciated. The good room silences all the other voices, and now you can hear and enjoy the delicate signal that the mic and pre and all the other components make.
The signal is half, what it's presented on is the other half. What it's presented on is just as important as what's presented.
Sorry for the long reply, but you can see how this experince has effected me (and also made me depressed as hell). The pros were right in harping on the room, but I thought they were just going on about nothing. Incredible.
Jeff
fraserhutch said:
Of course, the strength of the material goes without saying. But this is a home RECORDING forum, and we are all striving to make the best RECORDINGS we can. And that starts with the means of capturing the performance.
There are those here who write songs. There are those who arrange them, and there are those who record them. Some do more than one of the above, but the common thread here remains the RECORDING of those songs.
I agree with War et al here, the room is a powerful factor in the sound, and one that is most often overlooked. I know I initially overlooked it, and learnt REAL fast.
